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The Red Sox World Series parade was the final straw. I have a Nikon Coolpix 775, and for the most part it’s a good, serviceable camera. 90% of the time, it’s perfect for what I need – basic, unsophisticated shots. But I’m now in the market for a new one because the motor drive simply isn’t fast enough. It take about 30 seconds to boot up and another 15 or 20 to snap a picture, then 20-30 before another shot. For landscape shots and the like, this is just fine. For anything less static, it’s not. I missed some good shots yesterday because the camera couldn’t keep up. What good are 2000+ pictures if you can’t snap away?

Other complaints? The flash is weak – and that ruined some potentially good shots from the Red Sox celebration. It also does not have – or at least I have found – a manual intentional overexpose feature for night-time shots.

If anyone has any digital camera knowledge they’d like to drop on me, I’m all ears. Ideally I’d love a digital SLR, just for the lens interchange, but as near as I can determine those run close to a grand and I like taking pictures, but not that much. Basically I need something like what I have now, but with a better, faster motor drive. Suggestions more than welcome.

To see what new gear might meet your needs, check out Digital Photography Review, http://www.dpreview.com. It’s a thousand times better than the printed photo mags. They have a preliminary review of a new Nikon CoolPix 8400 (click on the “review” entry in the menu), and that camera might have the continuous frame rate that you are looking for–something like 10 shots in a row (burst mode, just fire away by holding down the shutter button). I have a Canon PowerShot that works well for me, but probably isn’t what you’re looking for.

http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady sogrady

cool site, thanks for the link. i think i'd seen this some time ago and completely forgotten about it, so the pointer's a big help.

how do you like the powershot? good/not good?

Brian

I have a PowerShot S45 and am pretty happy with it. I chose it because it has lots of advanced settings (user configurable/programmable) and it can shoot RAW format. It slips easily into a jacket pocket, unlike its bigger brethern in the PowerShot G series. Main drawback for me is that the optical viewfinder shows about 85% area-wise of what the lens sees, so unless I use the LCD on the back for framing, precise framing is sometimes dicey. Newer versions–up to S60 now, I think–may have fixed this. Overall, optics and ops have been excellent for such a small package. I got a good deal on it from Costco, w/extra battery–which has saved my neck on more than one occasion.

http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady sogrady

the portability issue is actually something i think is key. the coolpix, for all its other faults, is pretty small and easy to carry around. a bigger camera wouldn’t be obviously. but at least i know where i have to research now.